Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters.
After two months of cozy Fox News interviews, President Donald Trump finally plans to sit down with another network’s host tomorrow. But don’t expect the interview to shed much light on the numerous scandals currently drowning the Trump administration. The president will be questioned by the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Pat Robertson, who has said that Trump’s critics are defying God’s will and serving Satan.
Trump has stopped granting televised interviews to media figures who aren’t sycophants. According to a Media Matters review, he has done 17 television interviews since being sworn in, 12 of which were with the pro-Trump hosts of Fox News and Fox Business. He has done more interviews (four) with Fox & Friends than with ABC, CBS, and NBC combined. He has not been interviewed by a non-Fox host since his disastrous May appearance with NBC’s Lester Holt, during which he admitted that he had fired FBI Director James Comey because of his handling of the Russia investigation. Trump also has not done a full press conference since February, and his White House’s press briefings have become short, sporadic, and off-camera.
Robertson makes Sean Hannity look like Rachel Maddow. He believes that God is working on Trump’s behalf and that the president’s opponents are “not only revolting against Trump, they’re revolting against what God’s plan is for America” due to a “satanic” desire to “destroy America.”
The 700 Club host also has ties to Trump’s personal attorney. Jay Sekulow has been chief counsel at the Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice since 1993.
Robertson has a long history of making bizarre and offensive commentary, including:
- Days after the 9/11 terror attacks, Robertson said he “totally concur[red]” with Rev. Jerry Falwell’s statement blaming the attacks on “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way.” He later called Falwell’s comments “totally inappropriate.”
- Robertson claimed that a devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti happened because Haitians “swore a pact to the devil” to get “free from the French” and “ever since, they have been cursed.”
- Robertson blamed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on legalized abortion.
- Robertson has called Islam a “political system” that is “bent on world domination” and urged that American Muslims be treated like communists or fascists. He has said that Osama bin Laden “may be one of the true disciples of the teaching of the Quran … because he’s following through literally word-for-word what it says,” and he has predicted “a holy war between Islam and Christianity.”
- Robertson has labeled a wide range of things as demonic, including: feng shui, yoga, karate, horoscopes, Twilight, paintings of Buddha, television shows about ghosts, Halloween, psychics, young girls levitating their friends at sleepovers, and (sometimes) adopted children from other countries. He once urged a caller to burn a painting of Buddha to eliminate its “demonic power.”
Shelby Jamerson and Rob Savillo provided additional research
Header image by Sarah Wasko / Media Matters